June 2010

June 29, 2010

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Old rivals die hard. Either that or
old rivals just get old and like to talk about the old glory days. Oh yes, those halcyon days when we had
more hair and could drill 20-footers from the corner...

Jim Furyk remembers those days, too, especially the part about the
20-footers from the corner, which he recalled in better detail than a pro
athlete with his resume should. See, the 2003 U.S. Open champion and former No.
2 rated player in the world (he’s currently ranked No. 5) was known less for
his unconventional golf swing and stellar short game when he was a student at
Manheim Township High School in Lancaster, Pa., and more for his stroke from
the outside on the Blue Streaks’ basketball team.

At least that’s how I remember it, though Furyk politely
corrected some of those memories about his basketball career on Tuesday
afternoon as he finished up a practice round at Aronimink Golf Club ahead of
the AT&T National. Playing somewhat near his hometown (head out 30 west
until you get to Manheim Pike and then make a right at Granite Run… that will
take you into his old ‘hood), or at least close enough that fans waiting for
autographs called out, “Go Blue Streaks!” at him, Furyk explained that the
20-footer from the corner against Lebanon wasn’t as clutch as believed.

It was still a pretty big shot though.

“We had to beat them once in the next two games in order
to win the second-half title,” Furyk said, before calling his abilities on the basketball
court, “average.”

For a golfer (whatever that means), he still looks like he could give some high school kids a good run after finishing up 18 holes. Fit and trim as he was in high school, Furyk is playing some of the best golf of his life these days. Perhaps the only things that betray his age are the list of tournaments won and a hairline that has disappeared and crawled away for good.

As for Furyk being just an "average" ballplayer, I beg to differ. Considering that he played at
the quintessential suburban high school in which it was somewhat surprising to
learn that John Hughes did not scout out the place in order to research some of
his movies like Pretty in Pink or The Breakfast Club or even 16 Candles, they were no pushover for us
at the inner-city McCaskey High. We always thought we could waltz into gyms
like Manheim Township or Hempfield and just intimidate them because our team
was not made up of too many white kids, but that wasn’t always the case.

Township could play and the reason for that was guys like
Furyk knew their roles and were put in positions where they could rely on their
strengths. For the gang at McCaskey — and every other team in the
Lancaster-Lebanon League circa 1988 — that meant Furyk could not be left open.

“You guys had more talent,” Furyk conceded to me, “but we
put it together better.”

It’s difficult to argue with that considering Furyk’s
team went to the league championship to face Warwick, which was a juggernaut that
season with all-stater, Jack Hurd. If that name sounds familiar it’s because Hurd went on
to start for four years at La Salle and has a spot in the Big 5 Hall of Fame. You can see his picture hanging on the wall at The Palestra if you look for it. Because of this fact, Hurd was the real star of the sports scene back then. Chalk it up to being the guy with a
full ride to play for a Division I basketball program, while the other guy was best known for a sport that doesn't exactly draw too many spectators.

To some degree, Furyk went somewhat unnoticed in those days. Oh
sure, we all knew how good he was at golf considering he won the state
championship by a record 12 strokes. Even for high school where the talent
parity in sports is not the same as it is in higher levels of competition, Furyk was like
the Globetrotters playing against the Washington Generals.

All he needed was a bucket of confetti.

“It wasn’t like he shot par and everyone else was
terrible,” said a high school and amateur golf competitor of Furyk’s named Ben
Miller, from Lancaster. “He shot [two great rounds] and just ran away from
everyone.”

That’s kind of the way it was in the 2003 U.S. Open where
he tied the all-time record for the lowest 72-hole score in tournament history.
The difference there, of course, was that Furyk was beating Tiger Woods and not punk kids named Miller from Lancaster. Still, it was during his senior year at Manheim Township where his path to a career in golf first
became crystal clear.

“Up until his junior year he was really, really good,”
Miller said. “But by his senior year there was no one who could compete with
him. He just went to a different level.”

But consider this… just what in the hell was
Furyk doing on the basketball court to begin with? Considering he was the top
amateur golfer in Pennsylvania probably since Latrobe's Arnie Palmer tore it up, it’s a wonder he wasn’t
sequestered at Meadia Heights hitting balls all day. Or, perhaps, if he had shown such talent for golf these days he could have been enrolled in
one of those special schools where kids focus on their sport all day long with
some book learnin’ sprinkled in.

Instead Furyk was a regular dude who played whatever sports he could. Miller says Furyk was a champion swimmer when he was
a kid and played football, too. Still, think of the time he spent playing
competitive high school basketball where an injury could have ruined one of the era’s best all-around
golf careers. Didn’t anyone tell him to stop?

“No, all my friends were on the basketball team, so it
was a chance for me to hang out with them,” he said, adding that some of the
guys from the Township hoops squad were in his wedding and he still keeps in
close touch with them now. Golf (obviously) didn’t have that social aspect with
all its need to shush anyone who
makes even the slightest noise when shifting from one foot to another.

In Lancaster, Pa. in 1988 being on the golf team wasn’t
the path to popularity.

“Playing golf wasn’t too cool back then,” Furyk said,
noting that during the golf season he had to bring his clubs to school and
stash them in the coach’s office. “There was no way I was going to ride the bus
to school with my clubs so I used to make my mom drive me. I wasn’t going to be
seen carrying my golf bag on the bus or around school.”

Ah, but times change. What was uncool in the 1980s is
viewed differently these days and one has to imagine that a state champion
golfer would not get picked on for dragging his golf clubs around at school.
Maybe getting a ride from mom would be the wrong move, but golf — for someone
as good as Furyk — nah, not any more.

Besides, it wasn’t like the cool kids or jocks were
pasting a “kick me” sign on his back in the hallways as if he were George
McFly. This is Jim Furyk we’re talking about… he was on the basketball team.

Here’s the really interesting part… during Furyk’s senior
year Billy Owens of Carlisle High and later Syracuse University (and then six
different teams in the NBA), was the best player in Pennsylvania. Fortunately,
Furyk says, he never had to face Owens in basketball like some of us. But where it gets
interesting is Owens is exactly 11 days older than Furyk and was the more
heralded athlete during high school and for many years after, too.

But Owens has been retired from the NBA since 2001 while
Furyk, at age 40, has already won two tournaments this year and has won the
sixth-most number of tournaments among active players. Yes, at 40, Furyk is
just getting started.

June 25, 2010

The texts and messages rolled in almost as quickly as it
happened. Mostly, with the group of folks I have given my contact information
to, the knee-jerk response was laughter. After all, it’s not every day that the
general manager of a baseball team that is coming off of two straight trips to
the World Series takes a shot at you on live TV.

Call it a badge of honor or something like that. After
all, acknowledgment is a good thing (or something).

Anyway, when I learned about the comments they were
always followed up by the question, “are you mad?” My theory on why this was the question is because I’m sure the
cats who asked were hoping for a little tête
à tête between the GM and me. Look, I don’t associate with the most noble
of folks. Actually, these are the types of people who take delight in the
failure of others and love a good soap opera more so than a digging through the
archives.

Yes, my friends are weasels. Then again, that’s why they
are my friends.

So once I pieced together the smarty-pants comments from
the GM about me on live television, the easy answer to the questions was, “No,
why would I be angry?”

That was the truth, too. Angry? Nope, not with the GM.
Considering I compared him to Nixon bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War
when playing us press types for fools during the Winter Meetings. Remember
that? The GM told us the Phillies weren’t in the mix for Roy Halladay, but then
a couple days later he made the big trade. Incidentally, Halladay pitches
tonight against the team he was traded from.

Synergy, huh?

Nevertheless, for those of us who like to dish it out we
sure as shoot better be able to take it, too. There might be a little bit of
crying allowed in baseball, but there is no place for whining. Rub some dirt on
that bruised ego and get back out there is what I say.

So what does this have to do with the United States
national team and the World Cup? Well, not much unless we relate it to me (and
this is all about me). See, a couple
of weeks ago I sat at the Linc and watched the World Cup squad take on Turkey
in their last game in the U.S. before jetting off to South Africa. From that
game and the reports on the previous game against the Czech Republic, my
thought was Bob Bradley’s team could be setting itself up for a big crash.

I even wrote this:

Bob Bradley is a
smart man. As the coach of the U.S. World Cup team headed for South Africa on
Monday, Bradley has to be pretty sharp. So when listening to the coach speak
after games it’s best to listen to the words he’s not saying as opposed to what is said.

Now this isn’t to
say that Bradley is performing avant jazz by bebopping and scatting confusing
and cryptic phrases on our ears. No, far from it. However, following the 2-1 victory
over the national team from Turkey on Saturday afternoon at the Linc, it was
evident that the coach believes his team has some more work to do before its
first match against England on June 12.

Again, Bradley
wasn’t hiding anything, but then again he really didn’t have to. There was no
conspiratorial tone from Bradley whatsoever. Still, it seemed as if Bradley was
trying to sell the notion that everything was going to be OK.

Certainly that’s a relative
term when it comes to U.S. soccer in international competition. Still, based on
the team’s painful 0-3 showing in the last World Cup and the experience of the
players on the current roster, Team USA has to be a little better than OK. It’s
the round of 16 or bust in South Africa for the U.S.

Yep, Bradley knew what he was saying that afternoon in
Philadelphia. He outlined exactly
what his team had to do in the final week and a half leading up to the World
Cup opener against England and things have actually gone better than planned.
Oh yes, there were some tense moments there before Landon Donovan scored in
extra time to boost the U.S. to the win of Group C, and it’s not unfair to
suggest that Bradley’s boys deserved a lot less stress on their run to the
final 16.

But you know what? Bradley gets it. The coach really
knows what he’s doing. He knows when to push his guys and when to relax on the
whip a bit. Moreover, there is nothing about the undefeated round robin stage
that has been a mistake. The U.S. won the group because it was the best team.

As far as dealing with the press in South Africa, it
appears as if Bradley has kept it just as avant as he did that day in
Philadelphia. If the quarterfinals game against Ghana comes down to strategery
and acumen, the U.S. is going to march on.

So here we are with another big plate of crow, a fork and
a sharp knife. In fact, if it comes to that I’m going to hold my nose and take
a big bite.

No, the U.S. is not
going to win the World Cup. At least not until the next Kobe Bryant and LeBron
James opt for soccer instead of other sports.In other words, this could be a
very good year for U.S. Soccer… that is if it can take care of a few issues
before the games start. That means no more repeats of the first half of the
game against Turkey in Philadelphia.

Yep, that was me. I typed that just enough arrogance to
force others to believe that I knew what I was talking about. So now with it
all out on the table like this, let’s entertain the thought for a moment—y’know,
tempt fate, the football gods and
Posh Spice with some crazy talk…

What if the U.S. wins this thing? Really, what then? Will
there be an explosion, a war, a day off from work, a chance for the
international community to question the very nature of life?

June 23, 2010

We get it. Jamie Moyer is old. At 47 it’s safe to say that Moyer has been old for a while now—at least in baseball terms. Sports, like most things, are a young man’s game and guys like Moyer are often viewed as a novelty or a curious relic.

So don’t come here looking for the standard, “age-is-just-a-number-like-ERA” crap. We’ve been there before, citing examples of folks like Dara Torres as athletes like Moyer who have defied conventional reasoning by competing at a high level well past their prime.

In other words, spare us. Moyer is 47, big deal. He’s been in his 40s since 2002 and promptly went out and won 21 games for Seattle. He’s also won 55 games since joining the Phillies at the end of the 2006 season when he was 43 and currently is tied for the team leadership in wins with eight.

Yes, Moyer is old. We know this. So instead of harping on the uniqueness of a 47-year-old lefty with a fastball that couldn’t scuff Plexiglas still getting it done at an elite level, perhaps we should look at the “why” and the “how.”

Age? Whatever.

What makes Moyer unique is that he still has the will to compete. Sure, it helps that he only goes out there once every five days and uses guile and grit more than muscle and power, but he still has to push himself through the vagaries and mundanity of a long season. Chalk that up to an active mind or the ability to shove aside human nature and boredom.

Think about it… baseball has been Moyer’s professional focus just about every day for four decades. That’s either genius or crazy.

Or both.

“That’s luck,” Moyer said when it was pointed out that he’s led the Phillies in wins through their recent run.

Actually, Moyer is wrong about that and it was pointed out to him that luck has nothing to do with his wins. He corrected himself to explain that he has worked quite hard, and that’s true, but at some point it goes beyond luck and hard work. Sometimes ballplayers like Moyer ignore the most obvious reason for success is talent. Everyone in baseball works hard and it will only get a player to a certain point.

Get this… Moyer is talented, too. He might not want to admit it, but it’s true.

So what keeps him going now? He says he isn’t too impressed by the milestones he achieves seemingly every time he steps onto the mound, trotting out the old line about all a guy can accomplish by just hanging around long enough. For instance, in Tuesday night’s win over Cleveland Moyer tied both Bob Feller in wins with 266 and Robin Roberts in homers allowed with 505. Feller, of course, lost more than three years of his 20s while serving in World War II, but the only players ahead of Moyer on the all-time list for wins not in the Hall of Fame are Jim Kaat, Bert Blyleven, Tommy John, Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux.

The numbers and the names aren’t what keep Moyer going. That’s for him to enjoy later. No, the reason why he keeps coming back for more is the winning. Not so much as him getting the wins as it is the team. Just the idea of getting another World Series ring is enough to keep Moyer in it.

Need proof? Try this… Moyer says he was ready to retire after the 2006 season. Sitting in Anaheim waiting to pitch in a meaningless game for the Mariners in mid-August, Moyer says he and his wife had a 90-minute conversation over the phone about his decision to pack it in. He just couldn’t bear another season playing for a mediocre team with no realistic shot to win the World Series.

Enough was enough until he was offered an interesting proposition…

“A couple of days later they came to me and said, ‘Hey, want to be traded?’” Moyer recounted.

Five days after that phone conversation with his wife, Moyer was pitching for a Phillies team that was preparing to make the greatest post-season run in their history. Better yet, he was the pitcher who got the most wins during it all.

Luck? Nah, luck is for the lottery.

“There’s still a lot of baseball left and it’s a responsibility of mine to come here and perform,” he said, not sounding like an old man just hanging on for the ride.

“You can’t rest on your laurels. If you have to wait for it, it’s not going to happen.”

As for homers allowed, it’s just Roberts and Moyer all alone at the top of the list. And chances are no one is going to get close to the record unless Tim Wakefield or Javier Vazquez “get hot.” Hey, there’s nothing wrong with being the pitcher who allowed the most homers ever. Bad pitchers aren’t ever given the chance to give up as many homers as Moyer.

“The only thing I think about is I’ve had a lot of chances to be able to do that,” Moyer said. “It’s probably not a record that I'm most proud of, but I'm proud of the opportunity that I've had to have those chances. And with my style of pitching, you know what? You’re going to give up home runs. That’s just the way it is. Some of them go really far. Some of them don’t. That's the way it goes.”

Yeah, we get it. Moyer has been around for a long time, which is a great accomplishment. But the beauty of Moyer’s success is that he’s not interested in simply showing up and getting credit. Yeah, there’s some luck and hard work involved, but there’s something else more important at play, too.

June 22, 2010

A favorite is the one that was the most obvious, like how Darren Daulton must be pleased that he was elected into the Phillies’ Wall of Fame now instead of a couple years down the road. Considering that the ex-catcher has claimed that certain folks will “ascend” into space at the conclusion of the Mayan calendar on Dec. 21, 2012 at precisely 11:11 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, it’s good that Daulton got his due now.

His post-baseball life has also been rife with tabloid fodder, too. There have been DUI charges, he’s had his license suspended, been arrested for domestic abuse, and he spent two months in jail for contempt of court after refusing to abide by the terms of a legal agreement related to the divorce from his second wife.

And to think, he was thisclose to becoming the Phillies’ manager instead of Larry Bowa. Imagine how those teams could have turned out.

These days, though, Daulton appears to be past all of that. Reasonably fit for a 48-year old man who spent most of his adult life strapped into catcher’s gear and had nearly a dozen different knee surgeries, Daulton mane of hair that fell out of his batting helmet is beginning to thin out. To compensate, he has a neat beard outlining his jaw line and a tan that would put George Hamilton to shame.

His skin is like rich, luxurious Corinthian leather.

“I’ve been driving with the top down,” Daulton said about his deep, sun-enhanced hue.

There was plenty of talk about the past with Daulton on Tuesday afternoon at the Bank where he was officially welcomed into the club’s Wall of Fame. The ceremony in which a plaque bearing his likeness will be tacked to the wall in Ashburn Alley will take place on Aug. 6.

Chalk up Daulton’s election as one where intangibles like leadership and hard work trumped all.

“I never saw anyone work harder during a rehab,” team general partner David Montgomery recalled about the winter of 1986 and 1987 when Daulton worked out at the Vet in an attempt to return from one of those knee surgeries.

Essentially, that was the essence of Daulton… he always had to work and it never looked easy. Though he went to the All-Star Game three times and was the fourth catcher to lead the National League in RBIs during the 1992 season, effort was paramount. Injuries robbed him of some good years and certainly some bad choices were made along the way, but when it all came together it was pretty sweet.

Look at that 1993 season where Daulton was the straw that stirred the drink. That season where the Phillies won the NL East and got to the World Series to face the Blue Jays, Daulton finished seventh in the MVP voting despite the fact that a teammate finished second in the voting and he batted just .257 with 24 homers.

The number that slips through the cracks is that Daulton caught 146 games that season. Yeah, no wonder he was always having surgery. Daulton caught 141 games in 1992, too, which eventually led to him not being able to catch at all after the 1995 season.

“There was one thing I could always eliminate, and that was if I worked my tail off I wouldn't have to look back if I didn't make it and second-guess myself,” Daulton said. “After hurting my knee early in my career, that was a moment I had to make a decision on whether I was going to play major-league baseball or not. The things I felt I had control of I tried to accomplish that.”

Control when it came to baseball was the one thing Daulton had. However, like everything else that didn’t come easy, either. As Daulton explains, it took a slight by his manager and another soul-searching decision for him to take over the role he became most known for.

“I remember (manager Jim Fregosi) pinch-hitting for me in the ninth inning in Pittsburgh with Ricky Jordan [in 1991] and I got a little peeved,” Daulton said. “I went in and said ‘Fregos, I thought I was your everyday catcher,’ and he said, ‘Dutch, until you can prove to me you can hit left-handed pitching in the big-leagues, I'm going to pinch-hit for you late in the game.’ He said, ‘You've been here the longest, they’ve turned the club over — Schmitty is no longer here, Lefty’s gone, so you’re the guy who needs to step up and be the leader of the ballclub.’

“From that point on, I decided that’s my job, and he kind of reiterated we need a leader and I was obviously the guy running the show behind the plate, so that was probably the first night it dawned on me, if I was going to remain here, I was going to have to be the club leader ... and also learn to hit left-handed pitching.”

Daulton never really hit lefties all that well during his career (just .233), though by the end of his career there was no discernment in the statistics against either handed pitcher. Moreover, though he was no longer the catcher, Daulton was the leader the Florida Marlins needed when they made the mad dash to the World Series victory in 1997.

Simply put, prior to the current run by the franchise, Daulton may have been one of the most important players to ever wear the team’s uniform. For the time and the place there were not too many players who had an impact like Dutch. Of course, importance of a player belies simple things such as numbers on a page and in that regard Daulton is both simple and complex.

June 21, 2010

Jim Thome wanted to step out of the batter’s box, wave to the crowd and doff his Twins’ batting helmet to the fans at the Bank on Friday night. As the cheers grew steadily louder as he walked from the visitor’s on-deck circle to the plate, Thome pointed out that the time wasn’t right.

Returning to the ballpark he helped open with a home run into the second deck for the first (unofficial) hit with his third different team, Thome wished there was some way he could have acknowledged the Philly fans. But as a pinch hitter in the top of the fifth inning with the game still very much in the balance, it would have been very odd. See, Thome worries about things like respect for the game and the opponent as well as the proper way to play the game.

Yes, baseball really matters to Jim Thome.

He thought about it again on Saturday night, too, when his two-run home run in the ninth inning started a five-run rally for the Twins that lead to the ugliest loss of the season for the Phillies. This time the ovation for the rocket Thome belted into the second bullpen (estimated at 466-feet) was mostly nostalgic. Sure, it was the future Hall of Famer’s 570th homer and was a shot off the 30th different team, but it was kind of a farewell to his old hometown fans. The standing ovation was a tribute for a guy who got the whole thing started for the Phillies.

Would this new golden era of Phillies baseball been possible if Thome hadn’t signed with the Phillies before the 2003 season? When he left Cleveland after 12 years and 334 homers it sparked a resurgence that turned Philadelphia from a place where ballplayers ran from as soon as they could, to a destination.

Could the Phillies have gotten Pedro Martinez, Cliff Lee, and Roy Halladay or been able to keep Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Cole Hamels if Thome hadn’t first shown up? Would Charlie Manuel have come to Philly if it hadn’t been for Big Jim? Hell, would Ryan Howard ever been a five-year, $125 million man without Thome?

Short answer… no.

“We needed to do something at the time,” Rollins said. “He brought excitement back to Philly baseball.”

It was a long time coming, too. So if the fans want to give Thome a standing ovation even though he helped the Twins beat the Phillies on Saturday night, it’s OK. For a pretty obvious reason, it felt right.

“That was pretty special. For the fans to do that, it was their way of showing respect and me telling them that I thought it was pretty cool,” Thome said after Saturday’s game. “The home run [Saturday] brought back a lot of memories.”

Thome hit his 400th homer at Citizens Bank Park and is closing in on the rare 600-home run plateau. In fact, if Thome gets to 600 he will be just the eighth player to do it (assuming Alex Rodriguez beats him there), but just the fifth slugger to reach the mark having never been linked to performance-enhancing drug use.

In other words, there’s no other way to view Thome other than as one of the greatest home run hitters to ever live.

“For me, it's humbling to talk about,” Thome said, acknowledging that he was at the “latter” part of his career. “When you get to this stage, it's something. It's pretty surreal to me. I'm just humbled and blessed.”

Actually, his homer on Saturday very likely could be his last plate appearance in the ballpark he christened with that homer back in 2004. After all, he’s going to turn 40 in August and is pretty much just a pinch hitter and a DH these days. He’s not the threat he once was during his two full seasons with the Phillies—where he hit 89 homers—or the first couple of seasons with the White Sox.

But you know what? Thome is cool with all of that. He understands that he has to make some changes and he’s willing to slide into a support role for the Twins’ stars, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Whatever it takes to get another shot at some October baseball, Thome will do what it takes.

“I'm a team guy, and this whole group here is filled with team guys,” he said. “It's nice to talk about home run records. I'm humbled by that. I'm really excited to talk about winning.”

Yes, the end is creeping ever so closer, and the names Thome passes on the all-time lists get more impressive every time he hits the ball. For instance, home run No. 570 pushed him past Rafael Palmeiro into sole possession of 11th place on the all-time homer list. Harmon Killebrew is just ahead at No. 10 with 573 homers.

Plus, with 1,584 RBIs Thome is tied with Killebrew and Rogers Hornsby for 35th all-time. Six more ribbies ties him with Andre Dawson and 11 more equal Mike Schmidt and George Brett. Interestingly, two more seasons could push him past Reggie Jackson for the most strikeouts ever, as well as into the top 5 in walks.

Indeed, it’s been a pretty nice career for Big Jim, though he warns there is still plenty of baseball left for him to play. Last weekend very well could have been Thome’s last stop at the Bank, but not his last lap around the track.

“I don’t think so,” Thome said when asked if 2010 will be his last season. “For me, not yet. Maybe soon. I have kids and I want to be with my kids, but I think you know it [time to retire]. When the time is right maybe I’ll wake up and say, ‘You know what, maybe this is it.’ It’s not there yet. I love the game and I have an appreciation toward the game and I respect what’s been given to me.”

And where would the Phillies be without him? Probably not where they are now.

June 19, 2010

As soon as it went down, Jim Joyce’s infamous call at first base to end Armando Galarraga’s chance at a perfect game had already been deconstructed and spit back into heavy rotation. It quickly registered as a trend on Twitter while folks argued if it was the worst call in a regular-season baseball game ever.

But then a funny thing happened—the whole thing was celebrated. Joyce, Galarraga, the Detroit Tigers and the sport of baseball… every last one of them were looked at as heroic and/or people to be emulated. Before anyone could digest what had happened it was the worst call ever, but then just as quickly the fastest 180-degree turn in public opinion took place and knocked it all off kilter.

Wha’ happened?

Easy. Joyce admitted he was human. He stood before everyone and did not make excuses when he said that he messed up. He apologized to Galarraga, accepted criticism stoically and offered to fix things any way that he could.

In other words, Joyce held himself accountable. Though there was no need to change the outcome of the game, machinations were in place for oversight. In the case with the imperfect game nothing was changed, though Major League Baseball says the matter was under review.

As Americans and sports fans, we demand that type of assurance that the game is on the level. After all, who wants to invest time and energy into being a fan only to see it all erased by the whims of one man? That’s why maverick referee Tim Donaghy’s admission that he fixed NBA games so offensive and made the jail sentence he served justifiable… people don’t just put money into sports, but they also give up their time. Nothing is more valuable than time.

And that’s why the finish of the World Cup match between the U.S. and Slovenia made me so angry.

I should point out that outcomes of games rarely upset me. Oh sure, when I was a kid I was disappointed if my team lost and I’ve been known to show emotion in regard to the McCaskey High basketball team. But for the most part the correct tact (I think) is to look at a game as a painting or a work of art that should be allowed to unfold organically. It’s more enjoyable to sit back, relax and let things play out.

So when a guy like referee Koman Coulibaly of Mali thrusts himself into a game and essentially determines the outcome, it’s too much to bear. For those of us who got out of bed especially early in order to watch the game, Coulibaly stole from us, too.

By now most sports fans have seen or heard about the go-ahead go that was scored by the U.S. and inexplicably waived off by because of some unexplained phantom foul. Making matters more twisted is the fact that the goal would have been exactly what the U.S. needed to advance to the knockout round of the World Cup for just the third time ever and first time since 2002. Because the game against Slovenia ended in a tie, the U.S. must win its final game against Algeria to guarantee a berth in the round of 16.

The U.S. team seemingly did its job by beating Slovenia, the referee, however, had a different agenda.

The part that’s most maddening about how the debacle unfolded is that there was no explanation or oversight. Sure, Coulibaly likely won’t referee another game as big as a World Cup match, but why was there no system in place to make sure mistakes like this one cannot occur? Or, why was there no official call made on the spot or comment from FIFA?

Hey, some of us got up early to watch the World Cup. Our day was ruined!

Anyway, Sports Illustrated soccer writer Grant Wahl has seen this all before and offered this in his latest from South Africa:

As much as I love soccer, I do get extremely frustrated by how often the postgame discussion revolves around the referee's decisions. No sport, not even NBA basketball, approaches soccer when it comes to officiating controversy. And no sport does less to provide teams and fans with explanations for refereeing decisions. The fact is that we may never know why Coulibaly waved off the U.S. goal -- FIFA doesn't allow a pool reporter to interview the referee, as most sports do, and I got no response when I e-mailed FIFA's head press officer in search of an explanation.

In the postgame mixed zone, U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati said he hadn't seen replays yet, but he had received 43 text messages from people who had watched the replay and not seen a foul. “We don't know what the foul was,” said Gulati. “We'll ask, but they're not required to tell us.”

Like Wahl, I love soccer—especially the World Cup. But I can understand why a lot of Americans haven’t warmed up to the sport because of things that happened in Friday’s match. In the U.S. sports leagues the officials explain the call on the spot… it was holding or clipping. Safe or out, foul or play on. Sure, that doesn’t mean a call isn’t open to second-guessing, but at least we know what is happening and why.

June 17, 2010

NEW YORK — It wasn’t so much the audacity of the shot from the end line that snaked between the North Korean goalie and the right post that stopped people in their tracks, it was the lavishness of the celebration by Brazil’s midfielder, Maicon. Part interpretive dance mixed with equal parts long-distance dedication, Maicon says the goal in Tuesday’s World Cup match was a dedication to his wife.

Which kind of makes the rest of us look like a bunch of slackers...

Nevertheless, it was the celebration that got the most attention in the Phillies’ clubhouse at Yankee Stadium nearly three hours before that night’s game against the defending World Champion Yankees. Oh sure, players like Ryan Howard—a standout soccer player when he was kid, he says—love the competition and the athleticism of the game and have a bit more than a passing interest in the World Cup (they are sports fans after all), but more than anything else it’s the theatrics.

Ryan Howard couldn’t get enough of the showmanship.

Oh make no mistake about it; Howard is a savvy fan of soccer. He knows which teams are usually strong in international play which is why Spain’s loss to Switzerland on Wednesday raised a few eyebrows around the team’s clubhouse. But the Phillies’ cleanup hitter also knows that every goal scored in the World Cup is a small miracle. They are like lightning strikes or immovable forces of nature calmly brushed aside. In a more hyperbolic and extreme sense, a goal like Maicon’s proves there are forces larger than us in the universe.

Or something like that…

“A 1-0 game is like 10-0,” Howard said, comparing soccer scores to baseball. “A 2-0 game is a blowout and the 4-0 game like Germany had the other day, that’s ridiculous.”

Surely some saw Maicon’s post-goal celebration as ridiculous. Better yet, it was arguably more compelling than the shot that tucked into the net just inside the left post. In fact, after such a magical goal everyone in the room knew the celebration would be equally as spectacular. When we all realized that the shot had indeed found the net, someone said, “OK, here we go,” in anticipation of what was to come next.

Maicon didn’t disappoint.

Overflowing with emotion, Maicon ran toward the sidelines with his eyes and index finger pointed toward the heavens before he dropped to his knees and put his fingers to his mouth that from the first glance looked as if he were imitating Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies or was sucking his thumb. Only later did we learn that he was giving tribute to his wife in a manner that would make former NBA player Doug Christie jealous.

“And to score in the first game? I cried, but I was happy. I kissed my wedding ring for everything that my wife has done for me,” Maicon explained to reporters after the match. “It is a thank you for everyone who has been by my side.”

Later, Maicon got into wardrobe and performed the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

Kidding aside, Maicon’s celebration led to an interesting topic of discussion, one I’m sure others have pondered as well…

How come baseball players don’t celebrate the way they do in other sports? Certainly a home run is a physics experiment that could have saved Sir Isaac Newton some time waiting for that piece of fruit to clunk him on the head. Moreover, a perfect swing of the bat that meets the ball oh so perfectly is just as artful as anything that occurs in the so-called, “Beautiful Game.” Clearly this was a question for Howard, one of history’s most prolific home run hitters.

“The next time you hit a home run you should celebrate like that,” I said to Howard while pointing to Maicon on the TV hanging above the clubhouse.

“What, you mean drop to my knees and suck my thumb?”Howard answered with a big smile and a laugh.

“Well, maybe not like that, but it looks like [Maicon] could get around the bases pretty quickly. Maybe you could just do that slide on the knees or do a little touchdown dance?”

Obviously this was all so ridiculous. Howard hits so many homers that he be worn out simply by getting around the bases. Still, it is worth mentioning that Howard’s current home run trot has its own panache with its relaxed movement around the bases that finishes with a little skip at home plate where he registers the run with his right foot as though he were dipping his big toe into a swimming pool to test the temperature of the water. Howard is cool with his own unique style. Howard’s big, smooth and strong vibe works in baseball so much better than anything that could have been choreographed by Bob Fosse or even Charo.

Either way, it never gets old. We could watch Howard or Maicon do their thing all summer long. At least that’s the sense one would get in a stroll through Manhattan where restaurants and pubs entice potential patrons by advertising the day’s World Cup games with big signs out front, while stores dress up mannequins in the latest team kits. Better yet, there were more folks seen around town in soccer gear than there were people dressed in Mets garb.

June 15, 2010

NEW YORK — Now we don’t know what is happening with the Phillies. The issues regarding the collective offensive slump could be one of those fluke things or maybe even something larger at work. We’ll be able to figure out those things at the end of the season when we ask what went wrong or right for this ballclub.

But make no mistake about it… something is wrong with the Phillies these days and walking in to Yankee Stadium for three games beginning tonight is probably not the best remedy. After all, not only do the Yankees have the best record in baseball, but also they are 22-7 at home this season.

So as the Phillies hope for a resurrection and look for a big-time measuring stick, we can only project and ask questions. No, it’s not the best situation, but until something breaks it’s all we have.

The question:

Is this it? Is this 32-29 version of the Phillies — the team that is 6-14 in the last 20 games — what we’re going to have to deal with for the rest of the season? And if so, how did we get here?

No, things don’t look too promising, and though manager Charlie Manuel remains upbeat and continues to trot of the mantra that his guys will hit (and pitch?), secretly he is worried. Why wouldn’t he be? Manuel knows as well as anyone that sometimes the twists and turns of the game have a way of settling in. At some point the trends stop being aberrations or spikes in a chart and become the norm. Just listen to Manuel speak if you need proof. He’ll cite line and verse about a time when the Phillies dropped into an offensive swoon, stayed there and never really wiggled out of it.

It began, Manuel recalls often, with a 20-run explosion in St. Louis in 2008, followed by the thought that the Phillies were on the way to scoring 1,000 runs for the season only to replaced with the reality that the team wasn’t going to score many runs without slugging a home run.

Worse, the great hitting coach’s team went on to win the World Series that year not by slugging past teams, but with pitching and defense.

Of all the indignities!

In the meantime the numbers are pretty harrowing. Worse, the owners of some of the ugliest digits are the players the Phillies can least afford to post them. After tying Reggie Jackson's World Series record with five homers in last October's Fall Classic, Chase Utley has dropped off considerably. Though he clubbed 10 homers in the first two months of the season, the All-Star second baseman has not hit one since May 20, a span of 21 games. Uglier yet, Utley has batted just .153 in that span. That's far worse than the .230 with two homers Ryan Howard has provided over the last 20 games or the .164 average and lone homer from free-agent to be, Jayson Werth in that same period.

As the manager might say, “Not good…”

The most alarming of the team-wide slumps is with Utley, who looks as if he is a marathoner who hit the wall. It’s not that Utley isn’t posting the numbers because sometimes that can be subjective and/or not an accurate measure. No, the part that Utley barely has warning track power anymore is what is strange. Last year Utley was whipped at the end of the season because had off-season hip surgery, rushed to get back to the lineup and then played in 156 regular-season games and 15 more in the playoffs. It was understandable for a guy to wear down under those circumstances.

However, how could Utley look so tired just 59 games into this season considering Manuel promised to give his second baseman more days off during the season? Instead, because of the Phillies’ struggles it’s become a vicious cycle. Manuel can’t rest Utley because the team needs to win games, but by continually trotting him out there he has begun to take the shape of a pencil worn down to the nub.

There are other variables at work, too. For instance, pitchers appear to have regrouped after being bludgeoned during the so-called “Steroid Era.” In making up for lost time and fighting back against ballparks built to cater to baseball’s lost age, the big-league pitchers have mounted an insurrection with three no-hitters and two perfect games already this season. Those tallies would be four and three if Jim Joyce hadn’t missed a call at first base in Detroit two weeks ago.

Like any living species, pitchers adapt and evolve. So after more than a decade of being treated like chum for hitters, the tables have turned. For a team filled with talented yet strikeout-prone and flawed hitters like the Phillies, opponents finally appear to be exploiting certain weaknesses.

All of those theories and questions only create more theories and questions. Still, the only question that matters in the short term is to wonder how quickly can the Phillies adjust, adapt and evolve. Because if the answer is not, “very quickly,” what we see might just be what we’re going to get.

June 13, 2010

Here’s how good (good used facetiously) the U.S. has been at soccer in the World
Cup:

For the team to advance to the knockout round for the
first time in 64 years — in only its second appearance after 40 years of not
qualifying for the tourney — Team USA needed a fluke goal. Actually, make that
(perhaps) the most notorious fluke goal in the history of sports.

At the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. In June of 1994,
Colombia’s star defender Andres Escobar intercepted a crossing pass into the
penalty box only to deflect it past his own goalie to give the U.S. a 2-1 lead
it would never relinquish. Because of that goal, the heavily-favored Colombians
were bounced from the tournament that many believed they could win.

Ten days later back home in Medellin, Escobar was murdered when he was shot 12 times allegedly by a
gunman hired by disappointed drug lords. Police reports say that after each of
the 12 shots hit Escobar, the murderer yelled, “Goal!”

It’s bad enough
getting bounced from the World Cup, but to do so with a loss to the United
States is like pouring salt into the wound.

Yes, they take football
seriously all over the globe and as the marquee sporting event in the world,
play in the World cup is scrutinized and deconstructed more fervently than
anything. Football is a religion in a lot of countries and followed to a degree
that even fans of American football cannot understand.

Now goals in World Cup action are like lightning strikes.
Sure, a couple of goals in a game can occur, but they are rare enough that they
are celebrated as if they are small miracles. In other words, to give away a
goal to the opposition is so devastating to a team’s chances in a match that it
can sway the outcome of the tournament. Goals can change lives… or end them.

So when Clint Dempsey’s shot from 18 yards away in the
opening match for USA and England in the 2010 World Cup, bounced off the hands
of goalie Rob Green and trickled into the net, it didn’t take long to see what
was coming. No, Green will live. They take football as seriously as anything in
England, but not to the extreme to murder a guy. But unless England regroups
and advances far into the tourney, Green’s life will never be the same.

Indeed, goals change lives. They mean that much.

Just a quick peruse through the English newspapers was
enough to see what Green is in for. Sure, the Philly and New York sports media
is supposed to be tough, often creating heroes and villains with just a few
sentences. However, in Philly we have nothing on the London writers who have
carved into the English team without mercy. Green, of course, has been the main
target with ledes like this one from the Sunday
Times, a conservative paper in London owned by the same company as the Wall Street Journal:

To the Boston Tea
Party and Belo Horizonte, the Royal Bafokeng Stadium can almost be added. Here
was parity that felt a lot like purgatory for Englishmen. England have not
begun a World Cup better for 28 years, scoring incisively through their
captain, Steven Gerrard, just four minutes in, and yet they have seldom ended a
tournament’s opening game feeling worse.

Robert Green, Fabio
Capello’s contentious choice of starting goalkeeper, imploded and the myth that
England are somehow among the favourites for these finals was exploded. A
scrappy, uncomfortable draw against the second-ranked side in Group C may not
stop Capello’s men topping it, but it is hard to see them proceeding far in the
knockout rounds unless they make giant and sudden improvements.

That story was one of the less incendiary published in
the aftermath of the USA-England match. The overwhelming majority of the prose
from England’s writers from South Africa cut deeper and sharper, not wasting
time in going for the jugular. The tabloid, The
Sun, plastered pictures of Green’s “fluff” all over its Sunday editions and
buried stories about British Petroleum’s “fluff” into the back pages.

From The Sun:

SKIPPER Steven
Gerrard refused to condemn Robert Green after the keeper's gaffe cost England
three points in Rustenburg.

Indeed, the writer seemed indignant about the team’s
captain refusing to pile on a teammate and later in the story labeled Dempsey’s
shot on goal, “tame,” with this bit about another error by the British:

“One disastrous
spill the Yanks won’t complain about.”

Yes, because theYanks are a bunch whiners for complaining about the wanton destruction of the planet.

And from The Guardian:

Just as South
Africa opened their World Cup with a goal that will be remembered forever, so England, as is their wont, contrived to open theirs
with a goalkeeping blunder that will never be forgotten. No sooner had Fabio
Capello placed his confidence in Robert Green than his judgment was mocked by
the sort of bungle no professional footballer can comfortably watch, an
unforced error that allowed the United States back into a game on which England
appeared to have a comfortable grip after Steven Gerrard's early goal.

Nowhere was the fact that England did not lose the game
mentioned high up in the reports from London. That all seemed beside the point
as the knee-jerk reactions rolled in from a misplay that has not affected
England’s chances to win the World Cup for the first time since 1966. In fact,
England and the United States are still favored to advance to the knock-out
rounds if they score a victory against either Algeria or Slovenia, two teams
not rated as high as either club.

But football was invented in England. More than Brazil,
Italy, Colombia, Ghana, Spain, Germany or South Africa, football is an English
game to a degree even greater than football, baseball and basketball are our games. The first modern rules were
put together at Cambridge University in 1848 though the game had been played in
England since the medieval times as they were first focused on conquering the
world and as a gift they gave it football.

With this gift, though, comes a steep price and Green is
paying it for all of England.

“Bring it on,”
Green said bravely after discussing his misplay with the English press in South
Africa. “I can take it.”

Indeed Green will continue to take it until England
regains a spot on top of the world. Based on the dispatches from London, that
won’t be any time soon.

June 10, 2010

Believe it or not, two of the greatest baseball teams in the history of the game played in Philadelphia. What makes that unbelievable is there has been more lost games from Philadelphia baseball teams than any other. In fact, heading into action on Thursday night, Philadelphia teams in Major League Baseball have lost 14,441 regular-season games and 63 more in the playoffs.

Only a team from Philadelphia could win 99 games and go to the World Series one year and lose 109 games the next season and 117 the year after that. More notably, of the top 10 worst single-season winning percentages in league history, Philadelphia holds 40 percent of the spots. That total increases to 45 percent of the top 20 worst seasons.

Oh, but when things go well in Philly we don’t know what to do with ourselves. Surely the reasons for this are better left for sociologists and trained professionals, so we’ll just leave that type analysis alone. However, when it comes to baseball in Philadelphia there are two eras that are on the top of the list and everything else kind of just filters in behind.

From 1929 to 1931, Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics tore through the American League to win three straight pennants with an average of 104 wins per season back when they only played 154 a year. Baseball historians regard the 1929 A’s club as a bit below the ’27 Yankees when ranking the greatest teams of all-time, though the three-year run by the A’s is amongst the greatest ever and had the distinction of ending the Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig dynasty.

But before Babe Ruth, the Yankees or the A’s that knocked them off in three straight seasons, the 1910 Athletics set the standard for which all Philadelphia baseball teams are based. That was the season Connie Mack guided Philadelphia to four trips to the World Series in five years, capturing three championships. In ’10, the A’s rolled over the Cubs in five games, six games over the Giants in ’11, a five-game victory over the Giants in ’13 before it came to an end in four games to the Braves in 1914.

The first dynasty of baseball history came to a crash landing in 1915 when Mack sold off his great players or the jumped to the upstart Federal League and spent the next seven seasons in last place.

Could you imagine what we would have written and said about Mack in this day and age if he sold Home Run Baker, Eddie Collins and Chief Bender to make a little cash though it meant a decade in the second division? That would be like David Montgomery being told by the Phillies’ partners to dump Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Roy Halladay in order to line the team’s coffers.

Strangely, Mack chose to sell out when his core group of stars were just coming into their primes and it’s not far-fetched to think that the Philadelphia Athletics and the Philadelphia Phillies could have played in the 1915 World Series. The first two games would have been played at the Baker Bowl on Broad and Huntingdon in North Philly, packed up the gear after the games, and walked down Lehigh for five blocks to Shibe Park.

Forget a subway series; Philadelphia could have hosted the Lehigh Avenue series.

Anyway, over the next few months we will write about the 100 years since Philadelphia started baseball’s first dynasty. Look for some stylings about the 1910 Philadelphia Athletics here over the next few months. We’ll revisit the “Deadball Era” where Frank “Home Run” Baker hit just two homers in 1910, but he led the league the next four straight years with totals of 11, 10, 12 and 9.

So here’s a little slice of the Deadball Era for the Digital Age. We’ll start with a little story about my favorite player from those teams:

Charles “Chief” Bender

The Chief, part Chippewa, led Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics to five pennants in the early part of the 20th Century and was a predecessor of Jim Thorpe’s at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Bender was easy-going, but he was not one who didn’t like to get in his subtle digs at those who treated him poorly because of the relevant racism. His teammates were always impressed that Bender withstood the racism of the era with aplomb and patience.

That didn’t mean they didn’t tease him. However, when Bender’s teammates made racist cracks to him, the pitcher called referred to them as “foreigners.” When admiring children crowded around him in the street and sought to ingratiate themselves with war whoops and rain dances, he never lost his patience. He was not unaware of the racism around him, but the easygoing Bender weathered the worst while doing his job, kind of like how Jackie Robinson bore the brunt during his first years in the majors nearly four decades later.

“You ignorant ill-bred foreigners,” Bender used to shout at his tormentors. “If you don't like the way I'm doing things out there, why don't you just pack up and go back to your own countries.”

At that time, as it is even now, teammates, fans, and the media called most players of Native American background “Chief.” In 1910, that was an epithet roughly equivalent to calling an African-American male “boy.” Not to mention, it doesn’t take a whole lot of creativity to call an Indian, “Chief.” But known as Chief to nearly everyone in baseball, Bender didn't complain. However, he always signed autographs “Charles Bender.” Notably, Connie Mack always called him by his middle name, Albert. He also said that if he ever needed one pitcher to win him a game, he would call on “Albert Bender.”

“If I had all the men I've ever handled and they were in their prime and there was one game I wanted to win above all others,” Mack was quoted as saying, “Albert would be my man.”

That was for good reason, too. Bender pitched a four-hit shutout in his first World Series game on Oct. 10, 1905 for a win in Game 2 against John McGraw’s Giants, before dropping the clincher with a five-hitter to the great Christy Mathewson in a 2-0 defeat.

In all, Bender started 10 World Series games and completed nine of them. In the 1911 World Series he started three games, completed them all, and allowed just three runs. In his first seven World Series starts covering 61 2/3 innings, Bender posted a 1.31 ERA and 47 strikeouts to 18 walks.

His best pitch was one he was credited with inventing called the “nickel curve,” which today is known as the slider. According to Baseball Reference, Bender compares to modern pitchers like Bert Blyleven and Greg Maddux.

In 1910, Bender put together his best regular season when he went 23-5 with a 1.58 ERA in 30 games. Perhaps best explaining his dominance in 1910, Bender had a 0.916 WHIP, allowing just 182 hits in 250 innings with a no-hitter against Cleveland on May 12.

During the World Series that season, Bender won the opener with a three-hitter over the Cubs at Shibe Park, but lost in a chance to sweep the series in Game 4 when the Cubs scored with two outs in the 10th inning off him.

Bender played with the A’s until 1914 when he jumped to the Federal League after the World Series. Following a season with Baltimore, Bender returned to pitch in Philadelphia with the Phillies for two seasons. After his playing days, he managed, coached and sometimes pitched with a bunch of minor league teams. Ultimately, he settled back in Philadelphia and lived in the Olney section of town on 12th Street behind the current location of the Albert Einstein Medical Center. Back in Philly, Bender operated a couple of businesses, including a jewelry shop in Conshohocken and a sporting goods store on 13th and Arch Streets in Center City. He also worked at Gimbels in Center City and coached with the A’s beginning in 1945until his death in 1954.

In September of 1953, the veterans committee elected Bender to the Hall of Fame, but eight months later — and three months before his induction at Cooperstown — Bender died of cancer at Graduate Hospital. He was buried at the Hillside Cemetary in Roslyn, Pa.

His legacy, aside from being the ace on the staff of the first dynasty in baseball and inventing the slider, Bender was known for his kindness off the mound and his smarts on it. Ty Cobb claimed Bender was the “braniest” pitcher he faced as well as the era’s “money” pitcher.